What lingers
by wompingWillow375
Summary: Severus was dead, and had long been ready to move on. So why is he still lingering on as a ghost, tied to the abominable Shrieking Shack and prone to fits of rage that shake the walls? Lilly Potter, Scorpius Malfoy and Rose Weasley try to find out, and get drawn into a mystery much deeper than they had imagined. Currently just friendship/adventure, eventual SM/RW & hints of SS/LP.
1. Chapter 1

Severus was furious. He had, if anything, been expecting Hell. For all the lack of theology present in the wizarding world which he had been part of for so long (and his complete lack of pious behavior), some little part of him still remembered the Sunday school his muggle grandmother had forced him to attend. Part of him had once feared being sent somewhere torturous after death- though as he grew older and more experienced it became less fear and more resignation to the inevitable.

A tiny, wistful part of him had wished that it was possible to see Lilly again. But he'd never even really hoped. He'd never let himself.

Yet here he was. He had died. He'd felt the blood pooling on the floor around him and felt himself fading away as he stared into Potter's baffled eyes- as close to Lilly's as he thought he'd ever see again. He had died, and instead of fire and torment or Lilly's welcoming embrace(because for him that was always what heaven would be) or even Albus's "next great adventure" he was just... here.

Exactly where he'd been when he died.

The shrieking shack was as dismal as ever it had been. In some ways, it was worse. A huge blood stain from where his body had bled out covered a larger amount of carpet than was left unstained, though he saw that his body itself had been removed by persons unknown.

The one-time Professor looked down at his pearly, slightly luminescent hand and through it to the stained carpet. The hand clenched reflexively as rage poured into him once again.

"Why?" he whispered, voice dangerously low but also somehow wounded.

He did not have pressing unfinished business here, nor strong emotional ties to bind him. If anything he'd been looking forward to leaving this world behind, regardless of what came next. Severus Snape had been tired of living for a very long time- why else would he have lived so dangerously for such little reward?

He had certainly not had a choice, as he had heard other ghosts speak of. So why, _why _was he hovering, translucent and seething, on the site of some of the worst memories he possessed?

He roared in frustration and as he did, a tremor shook the house. A window cracked and the chandelier swung unstably from its ancient fixture.

He froze, staring around him. A terrible possibility occurred to him.

"No." He breathed. "No, let it not be _that_."

He ran-no, his feet no longer touched the ground- flew through the wall and down, down into the secret passage. He flew towards Hogwarts with everything he had, and for a happy moment, he thought that his suspicion had been incorrect, that he would soon reach the castle and all would be, if not well, then at least only as bad as before. Perhaps he'd be like Bins and teach for eternity in a purgatory of his own making. Or he could haunt the library and spend his existence reading until he knew more than a living wizard ever could, and then lord it over future generations. That would make him feel at least a little better.

But then he ran into the wall. Well, not exactly a wall- it felt more like a tether, something suddenly jerking him to a stop and pulling him back, like a running dog reaching the end of its leash.

He could not leave the Shack.

Falling to his knees, still a little above the floor, he cursed Fate, magic, Dumbledore, and most of all he cursed Voldemort, again and again.

Then he flickered and disappeared.


	2. Chapter 2

James Potter had challenged Scorpius Malfoy to a duel next Hogsmead visit. The date had seemed so far off to Lilly, until suddenly it wasn't.

Now, the whole Great hall buzzed excitedly about all the features of the village everyone above second year would enjoy, and James had _still _not canceled the duel as she repeatedly harangued him to do. Far from it, in fact- he took every chance he got to taunt Malfoy in the corridors, and Merlin knew what he did if they ever found themselves alone.

Lilly was not pleased. Stabbing a sausage onto her fork with enough force to produce a truly awful squealing noise as the utensil scrapped the plate, she glowered across the table at her cousin Hugo.

"Oh, come on, Lilly, it's not that big of a deal. You know he's only trying to protect family." Said Hugo in his most reasonable voice.

Her glower intensified and an egg was mutilated with toast.

"I don't see a thing she needs to be protected from. Honestly, a girl should be friends with whomever she likes. James is being a great, bullying idiot and I am absolutely sick of it!" Her voice had risen on the last words.

Hugo hushed her, glancing around self consciously at the rest of the Gryffindor table.

"Well, if it bothers you so much, why don't you just tell Malfoy not to show?" His voice was a soft hiss, his brown Weasley eyes nervous.

She snorted. "Because he'd just sneer that slimy Malfoy sneer of his and tell me to mind my own business."

"Well, then maybe you should." said Hugo, grinning and buttering his own toast.

"But don't you realize how _unfair_ this is going to be? James picks on Scorpios all the time, and come on, you know James. He's probably unbeatable by him self, and there's no way he'll show up alone. He'll have his whole group with him, and Scorpios will show up on his own, a year younger than them, and get beaten to a pulp. Rose is about the only one in the school who could stop them, and not only has she got detention for correcting Professor Belby in class again, I've been forbidden by both boys to tell her it's even happening. Which is incredibly unfair of them."

"What, that they don't want to get the tongue lashing she'd give them all?" Hugo rolled his eyes. "You know what she's like."

"Yes," said Lilly in irritation, "I do. Well enough to know she'll be furious when she finds out we knew and didn't tell her. I mean, if someone was dueling my family for the right to be myfriend, I'd bloody well want to know about it."

"Language, Lilly!" he chided, still grinning. Then, grin fading, "I thought you didn't even like Malfoy." He said suspiciously.

She sighed in exasperation. "That's not the point! Anyway, I don't _dislike _him. I just think his sneer is slimy and he acts above his company no matter who he's with. I don't even really know him well, he's not in my year."

"Then why're you so torked off about what James does to him?" He continued eating his toast.

She glared at him with renewed wrath. "Hugo, you don't understand anything!"

Lilly stormed off, leaving Hugo to explain away her bad humor to the rest of the Gryffindor table as 'a little family squabble'.

She fumed down the corridor, propelled by fury. No one ever listened to her! Hugo was the only member of her family also in second year, so she ended up talking to him rather a lot by default, but he was so aggravatingly like her uncle Ron. Unless something directly affected him, he just didn't seem to care about it.

Then she stopped dead. There _was _someone who listened to her, when she could track him down. She reined in her anger, started to form a plan rather than more complaints, and headed thoughtfully to the library to find a certain Ravenclaw.

After a solid twenty minutes of combing the shelves and crannies of the large library, she found him in the back of the 'Advanced transfiguration' section, sitting on the floor with a stack of books almost as high as he was, nearly blocking him from view. All that showed was a tuft of the trade-mark Potter black hair.

She sat down next to him.

"Albus?" she said tentatively. He glanced at her over the top of the book, raising an eyebrow. "I need to borrow the cloak."

He actually set the book down, though a slender finger marked his page.

"Why?" He asked bluntly.

"Because James is being an idiot." She huffed, flipping her red curls in irritation.

"That's not new, and it hasn't made you need the cloak before. Explain."

Eventually, Albus drew the whole story from her, along with her plan.

"I think," he said after long consideration, "That that isn't much of a plan." She opened her mouth to argue, but he raised a hand. "But I can't really think of a better one that wouldn't end up involving me, and you seem determined to act. So yes, you may borrow the cloak. Just be careful, Lils." He smiled wryly.

She squealed and hugged him, disturbing the silence of the library and knocking down part of the stack of books.

In short order, Albus had obtained the invisibility cloak for her from Raven claw tower, and Lilly, content that she was now doing something to right the injustices of her world, had gone back to her common room to work on a potions essay. She watched in her peripheral vision as the common room slowly emptied of anyone in the top five years, and only when the last one had been gone several minutes did she yawn, stretch, and make a show of going up to her dorm.

By the time the coaches left for Hogsmead, she was walking across the grounds under the cloak, heading straight for the womping willow and the secret entrance below it.

Severus had no idea how how he'd been in this damned house. Perhaps it had only been months, perhaps far longer. It had to have been at least a year. He thought he remembered a snow storm that had cracked a roof timber, and later a heat so stifling that he could almost feel it. Had there been more summers, more winters? Possible, he supposed. He'd found that unless he saw or thought of something that invoked some strong emotion, he just faded away into the house. There was no sense of time or even of boredom, only a vague awareness of his own existence. Pulling himself out was possible if he really tried, but mostly he didn't bother anymore. The someone would either come for him and try to help, or they would not. At this point he doubted anyone either could or would attempt to rectify his ghostly predicament. After all, as far as he knew, no one else was aware of it.

He was floating mindlessly in the walls when he felt it. A foot on the floor boards in the main room on the first floor. His consciousness began to stir, and with the odd awareness of everything that came with his unlife he knew there was someone in the house, and more people outside of it. He shook himself fully awake and hung, invisible, behind the figure in the main room.

Except, that looking around, he could not see a figure. But a growing line of footsteps disturbed the dust, heading towards the front door. Had there been this much dust before? No matter. There was a simple explanation.

Potter was here, for whatever reason. And this, strangely, was not nearly as unwelcome as he would have thought it would be. It meant that somehow, Potter had survived his duel with the Dark Lord, and more importantly, might be able to carry news of Snape's state to a specialist capable of setting his spirit free of this plain and letting him finally pass on.

He glided after the figure, then stopped as the door latch slowly pressed down and the door swung jerkily and creakily open. Potter was leaving! He needed to reveal himself, make the brat stay long enough to understand! But already he heard foot steps retreating to the porch, where he sensed others, closer than anyone had been in years. Feeling strangely reticent to go out side but knowing it necessary, he slowly pushed through the now closing door and onto the wide veranda of the shrieking shack.

And, he thought for several wild moments, back in time.

In the front of the Shrieking Shack, James Potter was holding a wand up towards a suspended, up-turned figure, inverted robes concealing his face. Behind Potter three other boys were laughing.

Snape's mind reeled as he tried desperately to reconcile what he was seeing with what he thought to be true. Had he truly gone back to his school days? He felt horror and a tiny flare of pointless hope at this thought, then dismissed it as he looked around. The laughing boys bore no resemblance to the self styled 'Marauders' of his era. This boy wasn't, couldn't be James potter, no matter the resemblance. But how was this possible?

To further confuse things, one of the not-marauders called out, "Try the bat bogey hex, James!"

"Yeah, Potter, show him for tryin' to play one of the Gryffindors!" shouted another.

Severus narrowed his eyes at the boys, trying to understand. His head still felt muzzy from resting inside the house, and he couldn't seem to formulate any ideas about what was happening. But however odd the situation, this boy was evidently James Potter.

Suddenly a white hand clutching a wand shot out from under the robes and shot a red stunner which caught the sleeve of James' robe. James jumped to the side and the other boy fell to the ground in a heap of robes and cursing. Snape's eyes widened as.. Draco Malfoy? Stood up from his place on the ground and yelled curse after curse in an avenging volley straight at James. At once James friend's began to launch spells at the lone boy, but he immediately yelled, "Protego!"

Under the cover of the shield charm, he wiped his hair out of his eyes and Snape was finally able to see that it was not Draco. Not quite. The nose was too long, the eyes a lighter brown and the hair just a shade too dark a blond. The smirk, however, was exactly the same.

"What's this? You ask me here for a duel and can't face me your self? Afraid that a single real duelist could best the famous Potter?" Despite the brave words, the boy's eyes were darting around in a pattern very familiar to Snape. He was looking for an exit, and not finding a good one.

"He's just trying to trick you into facing him alone so he can cheat again and escape!" said one of the other boys. "Don't fall for it."

The young Malfoy, for Malfoy he surely must be, sneered the trade mark sneer of that name. "Wandless magic isn't cheating, Patil, it's called being better than your opponent."

Snape actually smiled at that, a small bitter thing that hadn't graced his face since long before he died.

"Fine, Malfoy, you want to fight one on one? Lower your shield and you've got it." Called James.

Malfoy snorted. "So your cronies can hex me the moment it's down? Fat chance, Potter. What is your problem with me, anyway? I never did a thing to you, never even spoke to you much before this year!"

"What, you mean besides your dad being a death eater?" Malfoy's knuckles whitened as he clenched his wand and Snape uttered a snarl of dislike that no one heard. "You know what my problem is, Malfoy. It's how you won't take a hint about who it is not okay to mislead!"

"I'm not misleading anyone! If you have a problem with someone in your house being my friend, you should speak to her about it, not gang up on me four to one like a coward!"

Snape felt something like sympathetic anger fill him. Potter's face twisted and he swiftly ducked sideways and fired a stunner around Malfoy's shield. The pale boy spun and tried to block, but was a fraction too slow and he toppled to the ground. Potter ran forward, fist raised, and time seemed to slow.

Snape, always so cold now, felt rage burn into his chest and banish the last remnants of the magic not-quite sleep from his mind, filling him with nothing but fury. He did not care that things were inexplicably changed, did not care for explications or solving his own problems. His only thought was that he was, at long last, going to eviscerate James Potter for being the sort of bullying bastard who would hit a younger boy while he was down.

The anger flowed like fire through his veins and he snapped into visibility like a switch flicking, becoming not just visible but more corporeal than he had been since life.

His low, predatory growl of "_Potter_!" would have been absolutely terrifying to all that heard it, if anyone had. However, at just exactly that moment, the figure in the invisibility cloak that Snape had all but forgotten about chose to reveal itself, ripping off the cloak just as it yelled,

"_JAMES SIRIUS POTTER, _you absolute _toerag_!"

Snape froze.

"I can't believe you would do something like this! No, actually, what's worse is that I can, I just didn't want to. Were you really going to hit him while he was stunned? You...you complete arrogant, controlling, spineless flobberworm!"

It was her voice. He would know that voice anywhere, even shaking with wrath. Her back was to him, and her long red hair cascaded down it. She was so young. Why was she so young?

Two baffled voices said, in very different tones, "Lilly?"

"Yes, James, Lilly. It's none of your business who anyone chooses to be friends with, and if you think I'm going to let you get away with..."

At this point, Lilly realized that no one was looking at her. Every gaze was locked on a point just behind her and to the left, and every face wore an expression of fear that even her best tirade would not have inspired.

"Lilly," Said James again, his voice deadly calm, "Why don't you come off that porch. Now." his eyes did not flicker from the point just behind her.

Speech forgotten, Lilly slowly turned around, dread hanging heavy in her stomach.

And Snape looked down into her small, delicate face.

"Lilly." He whispered. The same. Exactly the same.

Except...He looked into her eyes, and found them to be Potter's.

James' Potter's eyes in Lilly Evens' face.

Snape lost control, flickered and disappeared.


	3. Chapter 3

Lilly's breath took a long time to even out. She'd turned around to look into the intense gaze of a tall, shadowy and bleeding ghost directly behind her and just barely kept herself from crying out. This would have been surprising enough if the specter had not then whispered her name and vanished completely.

She had stood frozen for exactly three seconds, and then ran as fast as she could, followed closely by James and his friends. It was just an instinctual thing-She'd met other ghosts that she quite liked, but this one had given off a completely different feel. Not to mention the rumors about the violence of the ghosts of the Shreiking Shack, though she'd never really heard of anyone who'd actually met one before.

The group didn't stop running till they had reached the bottom of the hill, winded and, in some cases, still furious at each other.

"Lilly! What the hell! What were you thinking? You're not even allowed in Hogsmead, you're twelve!" Burst out James, glaring down at her.

"Yeah, well, I was only going to watch the duel to make sure you played fair and tell Rose on you if you didn't and then go back to Hogwarts. But that stunt you pulled with the stunner! James, you pig!"

James had the grace to look a little embarrassed. "I wasn't really gonna hit him, I think. I just got so angry, I guess I lost control of my temper. Suppose that was a little out of line, but come on, Lils. He's just such a little slime ball. The thought of anything happening between him and our Rosie makes me sick. There's just no way he should be trusted that much, not by anyone."

Behind him, Raj Patil and Peter Clearwater nodded, though Lilly saw that the final member of Jame's group, and his closest friend, Frankie Longbottom, was looking more serious and thoughtful.

"You are so prejudiced, James!" Lilly spat at him. "Rosie is a smart girl who should be allowed to make her own decisions about who to trust, and someone being a 'slime ball' doesn't mean they deserve to be hit while they're _unconscious_! You call yourself a Gryffindor, James, but all you are is cowardly bully!" She shouted the last word, and started to run down towards the village and the secret passage in Honeydukes.

She heard the boys halfhearted pursuit and James' shouted, "Lilly! Hey, now, Lilly, come on!" but ignored both, managing to lose the boys around a bend by hiding behind an old stone wall while they'd lost sight of her, and waiting till they'd passed. She started to walk down the path to the village again, still stewing about James, when she remembered- She had left not only Malfoy, still stunned, but also her father's invisibility cloak, at the shrieking shack!

It only took her a second to make up her mind and turn around. Ghost or no, she couldn't leave Malfoy there, and she'd probably need the cloak to get back to the castle unnoticed.

She walked back up the dirt path, wondering what she'd find at its end.

Snape had invisibly watched as the girl, so like his Lilly and yet not, had widened her eyes in fear and ran from him. Potter and all the others had gone too, scared by his sudden presence.

Wait, not all the others-He snorted as he realized they'd left the stunned Malfoy behind. Typical Gryffindor- leave no one behind, unless you don't like them, in which case they're on their own.

He made himself visible and floated over to the prone form, looking down at the familiar features. Then he noticed something falling from the boy's robes- looking closer, he saw it was a pocket watch. Blinking, he realized it wasn't just any pocket watch, but Draco's pocket watch. He'd watched as Draco was given that watch by his father in his fifth year. Snape was Malfoy's Godfather, after all.

It was engraved. There was no mistaking it. It was a family heirloom, spelled against theft. And it looked older than the last time he'd seen it.

All at once, it clicked in Severus' head. Of course, it was so obvious. There was only one person to whom Draco would have given this watch, and this was clearly he. Everything from his face to his bearing and his sneering banter screamed that this boy was the Malfoy family heir.

Severus stared down in shock.

He had been gone much, much longer than he had suspected.

Floating in contemplation of his situation, still hovering over the young Malfoy, he lost himself in thought until he was pulled rudely out by footsteps approaching, and the sound of a loud gasp. He looked up.

Staring at him was the Lilly who was not Lilly.

"No!" She yelled reflexively, starting to move toward the boy.

"No, what?" He asked sardonically, clasping his hands behind his back and looking at her sourly.

She stopped, looking momentarily flummoxed. Then she said in a calmer but uncertain voice, "Um. Whatever ghostly, vengeful thing you seem poised to do, could you please not do it? It's just, Scorpius there hasn't done anything to anyone, really, apart from acting a bit snotty, and he really doesn't deserve any more bad things to happen today."

Snape blinked. He'd not expected this, for her to come back and to stand up for the boy yet again. Then he quickly went back through his memories of the fight he'd witnessed- " If you have a problem with someone in your house being my friend, you should speak to her about it", Malfoy had said to James. Ah. Malfoy and this Lilly must be friends, however unlikely that seemed.

"I assure you, Miss Potter," He drawled, acting on an assumption and rewarded by her gasp of surprise, "That I am not planning anything ghostly or vengeful directed at Mr Malfoy. I was simply ascertaining that he was alright. However, if that brother of yours comes anywhere near this house again, I cannot make any such assurances." He scowled at the thought.

Unexpectedly, she laughed. "Oh, well that's alright. James actually _might _deserve some vengeance. Prat. I thought you were one of the violent, screamingly mad ghosts the Shack is supposed to be full of. I'm very relieved to find you sane."

"I'm not sure I'd go that far," he muttered, thinking aghast of his lost time and what he had almost done to James Potter's grandson. The boy was certainly foul, but did not deserve the fate he had nearly received.

Lilly only grinned and asked,"How do you know our names?"

He sneered. "I've known enough Potters and Malfoys in my days to spot them without being told. Scorpius, you said this one was? Son of Draco, I assume?" He felt anxiety building as he asked the question. What if he'd been here even longer? Generations, perhaps?

"Yes." She said, to his relief. "You've been in this house a very long time, then?"

"Yes." He growled, wishing it was not so.

"Why don't you ever come to Hogwarts?" she asked curiously. "There's a lot more ghosts in the castle, you know."

He rolled his eyes. "Yes, thank you, I am very familiar with Hogwarts." He paused, unsure about what to tell her. He decided on the truth, or at least a piece of it. Perhaps she might be able to bring assistance.

"As to why I don't travel to that 'esteemed place'," His tongue slipped acid into the words, "There are a few different kinds of ghost. I am, regrettably, not of a kind which can easily leave the sight of my own death." He said the words distastefully.

Her mouth dropped open. "You died here?" She blurted out.

"Yes. It is as depressing now as then." He said repressively.

"Oh. I, sorry, I didn't mean to..."

"It is fine." He said in a clipped, final sort of way. "Now, are you going to awaken Mr. Malfoy before you both miss the coaches back to school?"

She shuffled her feet self consciously. "Um. Well, I'm only a second year, so I haven't really learned how to wake up people once they've been stunned...I'm pretty good at the hover charm, though, so I was just going to float him back through the secret passage unconscious and put him in his common room to sleep it off. Better than staying here and missing the coach. And, um, since I am in my second year, me being here at all is a bit against school rules. I only came to try to stop James from being such a bastard, really."

He chose, for now, to over-look her disregard of school rules and her cursing for the simple reason that anything that made James Potter's life less agreeable, even if it was not exactly the same James Potter, was alright with him. "That would be an enormous drain on your magic at such an age, and you would risk hitting his head upon the archways, which I can tell you from experience will give him the worst headache possible the next day. The Enervate spell is not difficult. I could teach it to you, if you are interested."

He made this offer for two reasons- The first being that he really did mean to spare her some trouble and Malfoy's head a few bangs, and the second a more personal motive.

Her eyes brightened. "Really?" She was all enthusiasm, and it immediately bubbled over into talk.

Lilly, it seemed, _loved _learning new magic, could not get through the classes quickly enough, searched the library for new spells and made her other brother Albus(he suppressed a snort at the name) show her the wand movements. She babbled happily while he listened and mentally reviewed the best tactic for teaching this particular spell.

His wand had not made this journey with him, but he could still show her the basic movement, which she mimicked immediately. He made minor corrections that she followed faithfully, and then had her practice the incantation. Finally he had her practice the full spell on a nearby log until she had gotten it correct five times in a row. She was beaming with pride. He went so far as to give her a small, approving nod before motioning back to Scorpius.

Her face went from pride to determined concentration as she jabbed her wand in the prescribed motion and said, "Enervate!"

Scorpius opened his eyes slowly and looked around for a baffle second before muttering "Potter!" and attempting to gain his feet while looking everywhere at once. Lilly purposefully walked into his cone of vision, holding out a hand to help him up. He eyed it with suspicion.

"Lilly. What're you doing here? Where's Potter?" He took the offered hand gingerly.

"James is gone. He stunned you, and then I swear he and his little group were going to beat you up even after that-Lucky for you I'd just sneaked into Hogsmead through the secret passage in the shack, and I told James what for. Several times. At the top of my lungs." She summarized, leaving out the bits about the invisibility cloak because that was a Potter family secret, and about coming here for the duel. No need for him to get embarrassed.

Malfoy smirked. "I'm sorry I missed it. I remember the dinner when you told off your cousin Hugo for being rude to the house elves. So does the rest of the great Hall, I'd wager. Quite vividly. All the Weasley woman seem to have that talent."

Lilly turned a little pink while behind Scorpius, the ghost mouthed, "Weasely?" and wrinkled his nose. She tried not to giggle.

"Yes, I suppose we do."

"So James just left, then?" Scorpius sounded a little suspicious again.

"Oh, no. I was just getting into it when they all caught sight of something behind me and scampered." No need to mention that she had run at first, too.

"And just what was it, then?" He asked in well masked alarm.

"That would be me, Mr. Malfoy." Said a deep, sardonic voice directly behind him.

Scorpius whirled around, breath gasping. Snape chuckled. There did seem to be small compensations for being a ghost. He had always enjoyed startling students.

Scorpius, once he had had enough time to really register what was behind him, gasped again ogled.

"_Snape_?" He asked incredulously.

The ghost frowned, more out of thought than displeasure.

"You know me?" he asked.

Scorpius, having gotten over the shock somewhat, now simply looked extremely interested. "Well, sort of. Not really, I mean, my father has your portrait in his office. You were one of only two Slytherin Headmasters, weren't you? I was never really sure why he had the portrait, or when you lived. I always assumed he used it to eavesdrop on Mcgonagol in the heads office. I had no idea you'd become a ghost."

Snape nodded, relaxing. He was unsure whether his status as traitor had ever been revoked, and had been anxious most would not wish to listen to him if he was still thought a death eater. Finding that most did not remember him was as much a relief as it was a disappointment.

Beside Scorpius, Lilly was looking thoughtful. There was something _so _familiar about the name Snape. She could almost place it, but it eluded capture, lurking on the edges of her thoughts. She put the thought away for now to listen.

"Yes, I was Headmaster, though it was a short lived headship as I was a short lived wizard." He said. "And you would not have known about my status postmortem, because until today, no one did."

Both students looked surprised.

"Really? No one?" asked Lilly, flabbergasted.

"No one." He repeated somewhat bleakly. "I have been tied to this damned house for Merlin knows how many years. Which brings me to the topic of what I would like in return for having helped both of you."

Scorpius' eyes narrowed as Lilly's widened. He would have to play this carefully, he could see. "I will not ask very much, because truthfully I did not do very much. But I will ask for a small favor from each of you, should you be willing." He met Scorpius' wary gaze and asked, "Do you keep in contact with your grandfather Lucius?"

Surprise flicked briefly over Scorpius' face before being replaced by the Slytherin mask that had appeared the moment Snape asked for something.

"I do." He said neutrally.

"I would ask that you inform him of my presence here and pass on the message that I am calling in the favor he owed me before I died. And if he tells you favors die with the one they're owed to, tell him to stop arguing semantics."

Scorpius' guarded look dissipated, and he acquired an amused half-smile. "That I will willing do." He said as he nodded ascent.

Snape's eyes turned to Lilly. "Potter." He said firmly, partly to remember that she was, "I would like you to make me a promise." He had not even told her what it was and already she was nodding. Foolish girl. Beside her, Malfoy rolled his eyes, but didn't say anything, letting the other Slytherin do as he pleased. Severus took note of it, and thought it interesting.

"I would like you to research myself in the library and, _no matter what you find_, come back and tell me what public opinion of myself currently is. Without, of course, telling anyone else that I am here. Do you swear to this?" He gave her his most intimidating stare.

"I swear." She said solemnly. Then, pulling a small notebook and a self-inking quill from her robes, she asked efficiently, "When did you live? And what is your full name? And how did you die?"

He put on a pained face, but answered her questions. She'd need the information if she was to be useful. "Severus Snape, 1966-2003, mauled by a giant snake while conversing with He-who-must-not-be-named." He said stiffly

Both children goggled at him. After several moments, he said testily, "What?"

Scorpius actually grinned. "Sorry, sir, it's just that that's probably the most interesting death story I've ever heard."

"Speaking with the Dark Lord was in fact always very interesting, but it was never a safe occupation." He said dryly.

He saw Scorpius's eyes narrow again as the boy clearly thought about what was meant by 'occupation', and probably reassessed Snape's reasons for wanting to contact Lucius. Snape cursed himself mentally for revealing unnecessary information, then reminded himself that he no longer had to hide that secret as it had _already_ gotten him killed.

Lilly was oblivious to this exchange. "You're so much more recent than I assumed! Also, I think I have a brother named after you, which points in favor of positive public opinion." She gushed excitedly.

He looked at her in disbelief. "You have a brother named Severus?" He asked, eye brow raising.

"Well. Albus' middle name." She said, shrugging.

"Albus Severus Potter..." Said Snape, experimentally, and then snorted. "How odd. Ah, well, your father always did have strange taste, and I suppose the boy is stuck with it now." He looked at the angle of the light, and said, "Shouldn't you be getting along? The carriages will be leaving soon, and it is a long walk back to Hogwarts."

"Oh! Yes. A walk I should be starting, you're right." Said Lilly, beaming. Was she always at such extremes, wondered Severus? Furious one minute, radiantly happy the next, for no other reason than being involved in something?

"Yes, I should walk down and ride with the others so nothing looks strange." Said Scorpius. "Also so that I can hex James Potter."

"Good." Said both Lilly and Snape, without looking at each other.

"But," He said, looking at Lilly, "Would you mind showing me that passage sometime, Potter? I'd like to be able to come back and speak with you again sometime, sir. To tell you my grandfather's reply, for one."

Snape nodded his agreement, and Lilly said, "Of course."

The three said brief fair wells and parted company, every one of them already anticipation their next meeting, for different reasons.


End file.
